"[T]he policy [Kerry] is peddling is so exquisitely poised as to be untenable: a military strike that's effective enough to deter Assad from using chemical weapons again, but not enough to tip the balance of power to the rebels "

I mean, this is farking absurd, hubristic to the max. Anyone who believes we can actually do this...I don't know what to say.

Radioactive Ass:Biological Ali: The US military already has an open-ended authorization to attack al-Qaeda anywhere in the world. They don't need a separate resolution to go after them in Syria - that would be redundant.

Yet I have seen no evidence of them doing so, or planning to do so, anywhere in Syria. Even when they know who they are and (I assume) where they are. Why? Because at the moment they are fighting the man who they want out, While I can see the twisted logic behind that there comes a point where helping by doing nothing is probably not a bad thing at the moment (letting them kill each other) but any active assistance, no matter how small or large is still illogical and illegal to boot.

It's not illegal at all. The 2001 AUMF authorizes the president to go after Al Qaeda, at his discretion, anywhere in the world. In fact, Obama could simply state that he considers Assad part of the Al Qaeda support system and attack him. Congress' ceding of power was that absolute, and that farking retarded.

DamnYankees:LasersHurt: So you must believe that Assad is on the tip of toppling right now, then, and the slightest breeze will end him? Or... I'm not sure what part you think is something that we can't do.

The part where we somehow manage to do so much damage to Assad that he won't ever think about using weapons he thinks he needs to win, but somehow at the exact same time not do enough damage to reduce his odds of actually winning.

DamnYankees:Obama's Reptiloid Master: DamnYankees: Obama's Reptiloid Master: We probably can (realistically) stop that by taking a hard stance on Assad, all with some bombing of strategic targets.

No we cannot. We cannot control the world. We are not god.

Well, we could kill him and most of his officers. That takes the fight out of people.

And it might deter other tinpot dictators in the future.

It also might not.

Again, shiat sandwich, no mustard. But saying, "not my problem!" becomes a problem when the rest of the world sees you as the last superpower.

And yet the rest of the world doesn't want us to do this either.

Well, Britain doesn't, but Saudi Arabia does. Who knows where others fall along that spectrum?

But in 10-15 years, you can bet your ass some kid in Damascus will think, "maybe my parents would be alive if the US had intervened when they could!" as he straps a bomb to his chest and approaches an embassy.

DamnYankees:Obama's Reptiloid Master: We probably can (realistically) stop that by taking a hard stance on Assad, all with some bombing of strategic targets.

No we cannot. We cannot control the world. We are not god.

His own people have been blowing his shiat up for over a year and it does not seem to deter him. I have no idea what our govt means when they say "we need to teach him a lesson" you cannot teach someone who is unwilling to learn. Assad will probably just react in an even more offensive fashion. Dictators don't tend to just back down.

pmdgrwr:I guess Kerry is mad that Assad did not pic up the tab when they had dinner with their wives. If you fall for what they say about Syria and think we need to go to war to help Al Qaeda over throw Assad I have a bridge to sell to you, even comes with a on ramp to hope and change.

Um, are you having a stroke? That is the only possible explanation I can think of for the gibberish that you typed out there...

LasersHurt:HotIgneous Intruder: This shiat is NOT about one chemical attack.If you think that, you're hopelessly naive, a pretty typically adolescent intellect.

"But it IS about whatever I say it's about, whether or not I offer any evidence. This is how I excercise my srs adult intellect (Serious adults namecall people who disagree with their unsupported assertions.)"

If you don't have the sophistication to put the pieces together here, Putin, Obama, Assad, Bandar, then you should just stop prattling. You probably believe World War One was about the Archduke's assassination.It was about oil and the German navy converting their coal-fired ships to oil. The first British units into the field in World War I went into Iraq's port of Basra.Study it out.

The president says he has proof and the war will be quick and decisive. His war hero SoS concurs. Our commitment and casualties will be limited. We don't have time for UN weapons inspectors. The war will pay for itself.

Psylence:LasersHurt: Headso: qorkfiend: Your first mistake is assuming that we're doing this to "stop the killing" instead of "removing capability to use chemical weapons".

what do chemical weapons do? kill people?

Are you being intentionally obtuse here? Or do you actually not get the difference between "stopping the use of chemical weapons" and "stopping all killing entirely."

vernonFL: LasersHurt: vernonFL: Sure we can launch cruise missiles, but what happens when one of them accidentally hits a hospital, or a weapons depot that Assad turned into a daycare center in the last week

I think, for the most part, we know the difference between a hospital and a chemical weapons unit. At least I should hope.

We dont know the difference between a wedding and an Al Qaeda conference.

One error once? Well you sold me, we just target hospitals all the time.

Yea... just once. Wow.

Tell me, how can you tell what specific buildings contain chem. weapons? What do chemical weapons look like? Do the launchers look just like every other projectile weapon out there? (hint: Yes, yes they do)

But go ahead. Our military magic show will only kill evildoers!

I heard a story on here the other day about Kosovo. NATO targeted tanks in bombings, destroyed the, and halted the attack. As it turns out, they had been hitting cars altered to look like tanks to the targeting systems. As soon as the bombings ended, the real tanks were brought out from storage and put back into service.

imontheinternet:Assad is winning the war right now. Decisively. Tipping the war in favor of the rebels is a massive commitment, and lobbing a few bombs and walking away won't work, because national pride won't let "the bad guy" beat us.

This will very likely turn into a full commitment to side with rebel groups, the strongest of which are radical jihadists, to topple a dictatorship we don't like and replace it with an unknown interim government until elections are held, which may very well put the jihadists in power.

If this was 2002, I could excuse someone being naive about the risks involved here, but it isn't and I can't.

"[T]he policy [Kerry] is peddling is so exquisitely poised as to be untenable: a military strike that's effective enough to deter Assad from using chemical weapons again, but not enough to tip the balance of power to the rebels "

I mean, this is farking absurd, hubristic to the max. Anyone who believes we can actually do this...I don't know what to say.

Why is that impossible?

If I went around kicking puppies and you punched me in the face pretty good, I would probably stop kicking dogs. It would not, should that be your only punch, be even remotely enough damage to my puppy-kicking that I could no longer do it. It isn't the one punch that stops me, it is the knowledge that I will be punched again and again, eventually resulting in me choosing between kicking ten more puppies and me keeping a semblance of facial structure.

I haven't paid enough attention to Syria to know whether the rebels have a chance at winning or not, but unless they are right on the brink there should be enough leeway to both send the message "cut that shiat out" while still leaving Assad with enough strength to win without chemical weapons.

Otoh, if he cannot win without using chemical weapons, nothing short of overthrowing him would stop him.

He may not think he needs chemical weapons to win. He may have thought he was calling our bluff. Hell, I'm sure in hindsight saddam wouldn't have even considered the slightest impediment to inspectors searching for WMDs. Sometimes the bad guys win with these bluffs, sometimes they don't. There is also the possibility he didn't even order the attack. We have a pretty damn good military and people do stupid shiat sometimes. I wouldn't be surprised if someone could make a shiat call like that in the Syrian military.

There is also the message that the attack sends, which is that if you do it again we will do it again, which would ultimately result in his downfall (and our subsequently looking much better for overthrowing him than if we did so and he never used chemical weapons at all).

Can you give us a good breakdown of the evidence that leads you to believe that Assad is that close to the brink of defeat? Troop comparisons, arms numbers, supplies? Or are you just going off your gut instinct?

Name_Omitted:LasersHurt: So you must believe that Assad is on the tip of toppling right now, then, and the slightest breeze will end him? Or... I'm not sure what part you think is something that we can't do.

Let me try.

How about, if we get involved with a civil war, it should pick a side, and bring enough forces to end it. Getting involved, and being careful to not change the balance of power, is prolong the war, and to what end? So people die of being shelled conventionally instead of with gas? They are still just as dead.

Not to mention all the people we end up killing to...uh...stop the killing

DamnYankees:LasersHurt: So you must believe that Assad is on the tip of toppling right now, then, and the slightest breeze will end him? Or... I'm not sure what part you think is something that we can't do.

The part where we somehow manage to do so much damage to Assad that he won't ever think about using weapons he thinks he needs to win, but somehow at the exact same time not do enough damage to reduce his odds of actually winning.

I don't think either you or I know enough about the total of Assad's capabilities to properly make that call.

"[T]he policy [Kerry] is peddling is so exquisitely poised as to be untenable: a military strike that's effective enough to deter Assad from using chemical weapons again, but not enough to tip the balance of power to the rebels "

I mean, this is farking absurd, hubristic to the max. Anyone who believes we can actually do this...I don't know what to say.

So you must believe that Assad is on the tip of toppling right now, then, and the slightest breeze will end him? Or... I'm not sure what part you think is something that we can't do.

Now if Kerry was using the "Munich moment," as a symbol of as an action the US could take similar to Israel's Operation wrath of God(that was a result of actions in the Munich Olympics by black September that killed Israeli citizens) and show the Americans harmed by Assad then he would be on to something the US may approve. The problem is that no Americans have been harmed by doing nothing and that will change if a President's vanity causes the US to go to war with Syria. No national interest has even be expressed or explained for interfering in an internal conflictother than the generic it is bad for the world to kill people a certain way